A study on condolence strategies by Jordanian students at Irbid University College

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the strategies of condolence speech act as expressed by Jordanian students at Irbid University College and identified the respective role of social power and social distance in offering these strategies. It employed qualitative and quantitative research methods, and the study participants included 100 university students ranging from 19 to 23 years old. The data were collected using an adapted version of the discourse completion test and coded based on the coding schema. The results of the study demonstrated that praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness for the deceased was the most frequent strategy used by the participants, and expressing sympathy was the least frequently used strategy. When the power and distance aspects of the relationship between the speakers are concerned, the results showed that some of the strategies such as ‘praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness to be with the deceased' and ‘offering condolences’ are low-risk strategies to threaten the face needs of the bereaved people. Moreover, the results showed that the use of these strategies was mainly attributed to the participants’ culture, religious orientation, social power, and social distance between the interlocutors. Finally, some pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are briefly discussed in this article.

A Speech Act Analysis of Condolence Utterances for the Death of Queen Elizabeth Ii in Facebook Users

“…Similarly, (Kuang, 2015)and (Cardozo et al, 2020)'s study found strategy 'uncertainty' where the least strategy used one or two times. However, this current study is contrary to findings done by (Kongo & Gyasi, 2015), (Bayo, 2021), (Al-Hussein & Al-Meedi 2022), (Alemi et al, 2021), and(Al-Shboul, 2022)where the…”

“…Next, the second frequent use of condolence strategies 'ending with thoughtful word.' These result strategies are in line (Murad, 2013), (Kongo & Gyasi, 2015) (Abdul-Majid & Salih, 2019, (Bayo, 2021), and(Al-Shboul, 2022). In (Murad, 2013) study they used 'religious expression' as the most frequently employed by participants 61 times.…”

Pragmatic Competence in Learner English: The Case of Jordanian EFL Learners

“…Table 3 displays the types of threatening strategies which appeared in the native speakers' data and in the Jordanian EFL learner's data (N=650). All threats were analyzed upon a categorization by Shboul (2010). It can be understood that in addition to the five categories adopted by Shboul's (2010) study, the analysis revealed a sixth category, namely, issuing a direct request to make a threat.…”

Where there is suffering, there is sympathy: The speech act Sympathize in learning Chinese as a foreign language

“…In some cases, the speech act Sympathize nearly always manifests itself as a highly ritual condolence when the event soliciting it is extremely severe, such as death (House & Kádár, 2021). For example, Al‐Shboul (2022) listed seven strategies of condolence by Jordanian Arabic speakers, among which the strategy of “praying for God's mercy and forgiveness to be with the deceased” outranks the others, with the strategy of “expressing sympathy” as the least used. Al‐Shboul also talked about the influence of contextual factors such as social power and distance on linguistic choices when expressing condolence.…”

“…Representative research on Sympathize includes García (2010), Pudlinski (2005), and Al-Shboul (2022). In examining the performance of empathy and sympathy in social support settings, Pudlinski (2005) identified eight different methods for expressing empathy and/or sympathy based on the conversation analysis of 53 emotive responses to trouble telling on a peer support line operated in English.…”